Soul ;)

[brianedwards]

Brian - I think that all art forms are trying to capture 'soul' (for want of a better word). We're trying to express what can't always be explained. On a side note, I think that's why often music/art do a better job of capturing it. Poetry by it's very nature translates things into a language, whereas music can speak directly 'soul to soul'.

I have to disagree. I don't try to capture "the human soul" in my work, nor do I think it is somehow part of my duty as one who attempts to write poetry. I write because I enjoy it, it gives me a release, some people have told me I am good at it, others have even paid me for it, and maybe, somehow, somewhere along the line I may, in a very small way, contribute something to our collective knowledge about what it is to be human at this point in history. Soul? Doesn't even come into it.

Poetry is no more burdened by language in its attempt to communicate than painting is by light or perspective, or music by chords and scales. The form always mediates.

And I can honestly say that no work of art has ever spoken to my "soul". I don't know what soul is, I don't know what it means or whether or not it even exists. Or, if it does, whether or not I have one!

B.

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[Sharra]

lol Brian - I think you're being pedantic over the meaning of 'soul'. By soul, I mean the essence of what is human, and whether you're writing about Japan or washing the dishes, because you are human (? ), your writing MUST contain something of what is is to be human.

And I would agree that the form always mediates, but it is far easier for something non verbal to speak directly to the subconscious. If music moves us to tears, we're not always able to articulate why. If a poem/prose/film does the same then because it is verbal, we can usually/often explain why that is. That's what I mean

Sharra
xx

[brianedwards]

lol Brian - I think you're being pedantic over the meaning of 'soul'.

LMAO! Yes I am!

What is "the essence of what is human"? Sounds just as vague as "soul" to me. And, ahem, just as pretentious.

B.

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[Sharra]

Wasn't meant to be pretentious - I'm sure you know what I mean by it. What term/phrase would you use?
Sharra
x

[brianedwards]

Mmm . . . I think you moved this too soon Sharra. The discussion still addresses Leminh's poem and his comments afterwards. I hope he follows the thread here as I would like to hear his definition of "the human soul".

As for offering an alternative phrase, I couldn't possibly, as I don't know what I am being asked to describe.

B.

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[David]

The old AA rule, eh - avoid abstractions, especially indefinable ones, I suppose. A good rule, of course, but the word seems to have its place. I came across it just tonight, in a review of a new translation of Oblomov. James Wood - a more than half decent critic - uses it three times here:

Schwartz, similarly, in her translator’s note, speaks of Oblomov’s ‘shining soul’ and his ‘endearing foibles and rationalisations’. The spirit of these remarks catches something important. It is better to sleep than to work if the work is ignoble; better to be a genial pampered loafer than an ugly crook. But Oblomov is not vital or unlucky; his soul doesn’t shine, and he doesn’t have foibles. His life is dim and deeply fortunate. He has money to burn and devoted people to look after and love him. His soul is stagnant; and if clinical depression is compatible with living like a gourmet prince, he is depressed. This is where we need to remember, though, that he is not exactly a person.

So it's obviously doing something.

[brianedwards]

The old AA rule, eh - avoid abstractions, especially indefinable ones, I suppose. A good rule, of course, but the word seems to have its place. I came across it just tonight, in a review of a new translation of Oblomov. James Wood - a more than half decent critic - uses it three times here:

Schwartz, similarly, in her translator’s note, speaks of Oblomov’s ‘shining soul’ and his ‘endearing foibles and rationalisations’. The spirit of these remarks catches something important. It is better to sleep than to work if the work is ignoble; better to be a genial pampered loafer than an ugly crook. But Oblomov is not vital or unlucky; his soul doesn’t shine, and he doesn’t have foibles. His life is dim and deeply fortunate. He has money to burn and devoted people to look after and love him. His soul is stagnant; and if clinical depression is compatible with living like a gourmet prince, he is depressed. This is where we need to remember, though, that he is not exactly a person.

So it's obviously doing something.

Yes, but I think translators and journalists should adhere to the AA rule too. Repeating the word 3 times doesn't make its meaning any clearer to me. I have no idea what it means to have a "shining" or "stagnant" soul. Would "personality" not do the job equally as well?
Wood confuses the matter even further when he writes "he is not exactly a person".

B.

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[David]

Good point. I'm not sure that "a shining personality" or "a stagnant personality" would convey the same sense to me, though.

Perhaps it just comes down to the fact that words mean to each of us whatever we allow them to mean, and I (and Sharra) are more slatternly in our habits than you are, you old puritan. I'm not saying you're wrong, and it's a useful reminder that imprecision in the choice of words can sink the whole damn thing, or at least alienate a part of our potential readership.

[Terreson]

There is nothing imprecise in the word soul, as in having soul. Soul is duende, it is a capture, a possession over which you have little to no control. It enraptures as easily as it trounces. It is dionysiac. It takes you down to that liminal area, that threshold, where logic and definition and reductive reasoning and sunnyside logic have no play. Duende is a place where you encounter your own daemon. Just like Socrates did and St. Theresa and Goethe and Emily Dickinson and Federico Lorca and flamenco poets and Mississippi blues artists. But maybe not everyone has soul. And so maybe not everyone can respond to duende.

Terreson

[brianedwards]

There is nothing imprecise in the word soul, as in having soul. Soul is duende, it is a capture, a possession over which you have little to no control. It enraptures as easily as it trounces. It is dionysiac. It takes you down to that liminal area, that threshold, where logic and definition and reductive reasoning and sunnyside logic have no play. Duende is a place where you encounter your own daemon. Just like Socrates did and St. Theresa and Goethe and Emily Dickinson and Federico Lorca and flamenco poets and Mississippi blues artists. But maybe not everyone has soul. And so maybe not everyone can respond to duende.

Terreson

So the solution is to replace one abstract with another?
Your "duende" problematises more than it enlightens and your definition confuses only marginally less than it bores.

Ok that's harsh, but with all respect Terreson, to say that the word soul is without imprecision is naive at best.

B.

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